If you think that any book that's posted here is in violation of copyright law, please report it by sending an e-mail to abuse@mobileread.com and we will investigate and take any necessary action.

Please note that copyright laws differ all over the world, and that a book which is still under copyright in one country may very well be in the public domain, and hence legally downloadable, in another country. Before downloading a book, please check whether or not it is legal for you to do so, based on the copyright laws of your own country.

It should also be noted that sometimes the original book is out of copyright but not a specific translation of that book. This is true for some of the texts used in the Harvard Classics series. Thankfully, all of the translations used there are in the public domain.

Likewise, even if a book is completely out of copyright but is electronically published by a company, they still have the rights to that presentation of the book and it cannot be posted to MobileRead without the permission of the company. We could of course go to Project Gutenberg (as an example), get the same text, convert it to a form for upload at MobileRead, and then upload it to MobileRead without permission from the company that published the other version of the public domain text.

We are on a Canadian server. Canadian copyright is for the author's life plus 50 years. So Jane Austen is fine.

But if Jane Austen had died 60 years ago would her works be public domain?

As I understand it, the Berne Convention says countries must recognise and adhere to the copyright law pertaining in the country of origin.
As Austen was a British writer, her works are copyrighted for life plus 70 years - so would this not apply to her works in Canada too?

Any books available in the public domain, may be shared. Other books are copyrighted to the author, whether they are still available for sale or not, and it is a violation of that copyright to share such a book with others. e books are great, but there is the danger of mega piracy, which many of us e book publishers have been fighting for some years. Usually, these books are posted on obscure sites. We have been able to have many of them removed, but it's difficult to keep track of. Authors will more than often contact me if they find their book for sale somewhere and ask me if it's a legal site. Since Mobipocket and Fictionwise have many affiliates, their books will show up on a lot of sites. As the publisher, I can track down if it's a legal site or not. e book authors do such searches and have found many pirated books this way. Since e books are electronic and sold worldwide via the internet, copyright law applies to all countries, not just the country where the book is published. Of course, a publisher could encrypt and password protect e books.

As I understand it, the Berne Convention says countries must recognise and adhere to the copyright law pertaining in the country of origin.

Not quite. Article 7 (8) of the Berne Convention states that the [copyright] term shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed; however, unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work.

Harry, have I done everything I need to do to put such tasteless stories as I have written online here to make certain they are available without copyright concerns here? If not let me know what else I need to do....